Mistaken Delivery
by Sunfire Scribble
Summary: Increasingly desperate attempts at fixing the Vanishing Cabinet finally yield results, but not the ones Draco had been hoping for.
1. Prologue

Prologue:

He had to do it. There was no alternative to success, no option of failure. He simply had to do it. Everything depended on it. His father's life, his mother's life, his own life, they all depended on what he was doing. Everything hung in the balance and the weight of it all pressed heavily upon him, nearly smothering him at times. Yet he struggled on. There was nothing else to do. He had to succeed. He had to.

He _had_ to do this.

The words rang through his head, the desperation behind them contrasting so starkly with the confidence that had filled him when he'd first been given the assignment over the summer. He'd been so proud at first, so honored by being included. He could still remember the smile that had been on his mother's face when he'd told her that he had been trusted with an assignment from the Dark Lord himself. She'd never looked prouder, and had enthusiastically proclaimed that his father would feel the same when he was told.

But then the specifics had been sent, the full extent of his duties outlined and while he had still felt an easy confidence, his mother's smile had begun to wilt. It took the young Malfoy much longer to glimpse the reason for the strange way his mother always grew quiet when he mentioned his task.

The first few times he started to wonder why he, a boy not even out of school yet, a boy who'd worn the Dark Mark for no more than a few months, had been trusted with such a huge responsibility, he'd brushed it off. He was a Malfoy, after all, no job was too hard or too good for a Malfoy. Surely the enormity of his task had been chosen to match his extraordinary skill and maturity.

But after a couple of months of effort proved less than productive, he started to grow nervous. It had seemed so simple, especially for someone with his talent, but it had proved to be more complicated than he'd anticipated. Eventually nerves turned to frustration as he hit one dead end after another. Frustration dissolved into anger and six months into the school year he found himself unable to keep it all under the polished demeanor befitting a Malfoy.

He'd never forget the look that had slid over his mother's usually dignified features when he'd screamed into the fire in the Slytherin common room. Ridiculous, he'd yelled. The whole thing was simply ridiculous. He couldn't truly be expected to get Death Eaters into the thoroughly barricaded school and kill the legendary Headmaster, not without being caught. She'd been silent for a moment following his outburst, but then she'd grown angry, angrier than he'd ever seen her before, and turned on him with viciousness, stating rather coldly that if it was that difficult he'd better take the advice his Head of House had been offering before it was too late.

The suggestion only escalated the confrontation, Draco sneering at the image of his mother's face in the green flames. Surely she wasn't serious. But she was. He would succeed, no matter who's help he was forced to take in order to do so, she'd hissed. His life, all their lives, depended on it.

It had shocked him at first. He was a Malfoy. He was the son of Lucius Malfoy, one of the Dark Lord's most trusted, and most feared Death Eaters. He was a pureblood of undeniable lineage, he was the epitome of everything the Death Eaters stood for. How could he ever have a reason to fear his Lord? Yet he did. As unbelievable as it had seemed to him at first, he had every reason to fear the Dark Lord should he fail the task set for him.

And failing, he was beginning to fear, was a real possibility.

He'd never before thought that there would be something his ability or his name could not get him. But the more he tried to complete his task, the more he wondered if this would finally be the one thing he couldn't accomplish. It had seemed impossible once, that he would fail, but as time slipped away from him, as attempt after attempt got him no closer to his goal, a cold knot of dread and desperation began to form in the pit of his stomach.

This was his last chance, he knew. If he could not get this latest spell to work, if this plan didn't pan out for him, he would have no other choice but to accept Snape's help; and that was something he did not want to do. Severus Snape had been the Dark Lord's right hand since his first rise, he was the only one their Lord trusted more than his father, yet there was something about the potions master that didn't sit well with Draco.

The young Slytherin had always resented his Head of House for being higher in the inner circle than his father, had always detested the way the older man looked down at him. Snape wasn't even completely pureblooded, yet he stood closer to the Dark Lord's side than the Malfoy patriarch who could boast a much more prestigious line. It was wrong, Draco thought. But so was something else, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Severus Snape couldn't be disloyal to their Lord, that Draco was sure of, but there was still something about the professor that made him pause. And that pause was all it took to make him leery of allowing the older wizard to help him with the task that could doom his entire family should he himself not succeed at it.

So Draco trudged on, hoping with everything in him that this would work. It had to work, he thought as he closed the large tome. He'd scoured dozens of similar books over the past few months, for spells or charms that could accomplish what he needed. That had soon proved impossible however, and he had shifted direction, eventually settling for anything that might come close to what he needed and working from there.

Almost three months of searching and piecing together what he'd found had left him with the single sheet of parchment that now sat before him. It was a spell of his own making, a jigsaw of different charms and curses that he'd found in the dark tomes he'd procured. Having been unable to determine exactly how the cabinet itself worked, he'd had to do his best to imbue the piece of furniture with the abilities he needed it to possess. That alone had not been enough, however, so he'd combined those efforts with another charm, one which was to be cast on the person using the cabinet. Hopefully the two spells he'd created would work together to achieve the desired result.

Months of painstaking effort had gone into the creation of the two spells, so much so that it had seemed at times like he would never complete them. But he had. They were finished, and the only thing left to do was put them to the test. It had taken months of work and the flagging of his previously unshakable confidence in his abilities before he'd even realized the necessity for this final step. It had been with this realization that the last of his misconceptions regarding his assignment had been dispelled.

As soon as he'd figured out that any spell he found or devised would have to first be tested before it was cast on any of the senior Death Eaters that would be utilizing his results, he'd gotten frustrated. He could trust no one with knowledge of his assignment. Even the most loyal Slytherins would sell him out in a heartbeat if it meant saving their own skins. So how exactly was he expected to test the potentially dangerous spells without risking himself? That, of course, had been when he'd realized that he wasn't.

He wasn't expected to do any of it without greatly risking his own pureblooded self. As impeccable a blood line as he had, as loyal to the Dark Lord as he and the rest of his family had proven themselves to be, he wasn't expected to remain safe in the execution of his task. A task which was, he realized on closer thought, much more dangerous and impossible than he'd thought. He would be going against all the odds to even accomplish his task, let alone do so without damning himself.

He hadn't wanted to accept it at first, still didn't now. If his death was so sure, then he couldn't be the only one that realized it. The Dark Lord had to have known what it would mean when he'd given him the assignment in the first place, which could of course mean only one thing. It didn't matter to his Lord that he would most likely die in his attempt. In short, as far as the Dark Lord was concerned, he, Draco Malfoy, was expendable.

Even weeks after the revelation, the thought still sent shivers down his spine and the sixth year was forced to consciously still the trembling in his hand as he opened the door to the seemingly harmless looking cabinet. It was time to put his work to the test and no amount of stalling would change that. Still, it took a deep breath and a gathering of will before Draco could make himself step inside and close the door as he simultaneously cast his newly forged spell.

The air rushed out of his lungs as soon as the last syllable of the charm left his lips and he doubled over within the confines of the cabinet, a sickening pain slamming into his stomach as he gasped for breath, flashes of light exploding behind his eyelids. After several endless moments however, the world around him ceased spinning and he stumbled into the door, falling through it with a breathless curse.

As the pain and nausea dissipated, the young Malfoy heir became aware of the cold stone beneath him and slowly opened his eyes. Junk. That was the first word that leapt to his spoiled and sophisticated Malfoy mind. Piles and heaps of junk, everywhere; tarnished objects strewn all around him.

He'd never seen these specific objects before, but the general look of the haphazard collection of magical paraphernalia that so characterized the incarnation of the Room of Requirement that had served as his laboratory for the last few months was familiar enough to bring a new stream of curses to his sneering lips. This time the flood of words was unrestricted by lack of oxygen and so continued for some minutes, occasionally accompanied by his kicking or knocking down a box or book within his reach in an effort to work out some of the anger and frustrations coursing through him.

He'd failed. Again.

This had been everything, the culmination of all his time and work, his one true hope of success… and he'd failed. He'd gotten nowhere, except perhaps one step closer to his death, and the deaths of his father and mother as well. The thought drained the anger from his body, and he stood completely still, frozen with the humiliating chill of hopelessness and fear and the growing sensation that he might actually begin to cry.

Before the first tear could do more than sting the back of his throat, however, a noise caught his attention with sickening precision. Footsteps. He could hear footsteps, heavy, threatening footsteps. Frightening realization slammed into him. He had not checked in some time to make sure Crabbe and Goyle were still standing guard, and he had not heard any sound from the hall outside for hours. Surely if the two goons were still there, they would have alerted him to the presence of whoever was making those footsteps. But they hadn't, and that could mean only one thing.

He'd been caught.

His fear increased in time with his now pounding heart as he turned towards the sound, only to find himself starring at a set of stairs. He may not have been able to recognize the endless number of broken or illegal items that had been hidden in the room over the years, but he knew for a fact that there were no stairs in the Room of Requirement. Which meant he wasn't in the Room of Requirement any longer. The thought sent a surge of hope through him, maybe the spells had worked after all.

Any further hopeful contemplations were cut short, however, as the footsteps grew closer, and the two individuals responsible for the noise burst through the door at the top of the stairs and halted in front of him. Frosty grey eyes widened at the crossbow and sword pointed at him menacingly, the words tumbling from his lips without conscious thought.

"Who the bloody hell are you?"

A tall blond with an oddly distorted face brandished a nasty looking sword and cocked a single, scared eyebrow as the slender redhead next to him kept the crossbow aimed steadily at Draco's chest.

"I believe that's my line, mate."

End Prologue


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

"Well, answer the bloody question already, all this standing around's boring."

Draco swallowed the lump of building panic that had lodged itself in his throat. "Draco Malfoy."

"Really, oh well, that's right helpful, that is. What the fuck are you doing here, Draco Malfoy?"

The young wizard looked back and forth between the two weapon wielding Muggles, his eyes staying on the blond for a few seconds, icy grey examining the chiseled features closely. Hadn't there been something wrong with that face only a moment ago? He could have sworn that there'd been something weird about the man's face when he and the woman had appeared at the top of the stairs. His contemplations were cut off before they could get anywhere, however, as Spike's limited patience snapped.

"What, are you suddenly mute or something? I asked what you were doing here."

Draco turned his attention back to the rather sharp looking sword as the taller blond brandished it in his direction to emphasize his words. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? How did you get in here?"

"I mean I don't know, I didn't mean to come here, it was an accident."

"An accident? Well I-"

"Spike," the redhead cut him off before the vampire could say anything else, her green eyes seeming to bore a hole through their young guest for several moments before she slowly lowered the crossbow she was holding. "Why don't we continue this conversation upstairs?"

A single scared brow rose nearly to his bleached-blond hairline in disbelief. Willow rolled her eyes and gestured for him to lower his sword. "You may have the freakish strength thing going for you, but my arm's getting tired holding up this darn bow. Besides, standing around here isn't doing us any good, so the least we could do is finish this somewhere more comfortable, like upstairs."

Spike scowled. "The reason it's not doing us any good is because the little pip-squeek won't answer my bloody questions."

Draco's eyes narrowed as his pureblood ego winced at the insult. "I'm not a-"

The vampire turned a rather chilling glare in the younger man's direction and the words seemed to evaporate on his normally caustic tongue. Willow rolled her eyes yet again at the display, though her lips twitched the slightest bit at the look on Draco's face before turning and heading back into the shop. Spike waved the sword at the wizard with a curse, indicating that the young man should precede him through the door.

By the time the two blonds had made it through the training room and into the shop, Willow had put a closed sign on the front door and taken a seat at a small table in one corner, where Tara had once read fortunes on Halloween. Spike pointed the sword next to her, then took a seat across from the Malfoy heir.

"Spike. Put the sword away, will ya?"

The scarred brow rose again and the Wiccan sighed. "Really Spike, if he was going to do something, he probably would have tried to do it before we realized he was here instead of making all that noise and waiting for us to get weapons and see what was going on."

The vampire stewed over the redhead's logic for a moment before finally setting the sword on the ground next to his chair with a scowl. Once he'd done so, Willow turned to the new arrival. "So, Draco, how exactly did you accidentally wind up here?"

"I don't know. I told you, it was an accident. I was trying to get to this other shop and I somehow ended up here instead."

"Really. Well that was nice and vague. Way to answer a question without tellin' us a damn thing."

"Spike." The blond vampire clenched his jaw at the sharp impatience in her tone. "Why don't we just stop antagonizing him and let the boy talk."

Spike grudgingly kept quiet for a minute or two as they waited for Draco to elaborate. The vampire's patience ran out before the wizard's seeming determination to not be useful.

"You heard the witch," Spike growled, "talk, before I convince her to turn you into a rat."

Draco's eyes grew slightly wider at the blue-eyed Brit's use of the word 'witch', regarding the Muggles with genuine interest for the first time. The man wasn't being literal, right? Surely witch was some kind of insult or nick-name he had for the woman. Neither had once shown evidence of possessing a wand, hell, they'd used Muggle weapons. No real witch or wizard would use a sword or crossbow if they had a wand. Right? The stress of everything that had happened that night, not to mention the last few months, finally overtook him and the sixth-year lost his precarious control, blurting out his statement with none of the grace or dignity that befit a Malfoy.

"You're not a witch."

But even as the words tumbled past his lips, everything began to come together in his head. He'd come out of what he assumed had to be a vanishing cabinet in the basement of a store that, now that he really looked around, appeared to sell magical paraphernalia, though most of it looked decidedly different than what he was used to buying in Diagon and Knockturn Alleys. There had been other spell-related objects strewn around said basement, and when the two had first come down, the blond had looked odd, his face seeming distorted, his now blue eyes had held a golden glow and his teeth had-

"You're a vampire!" The exclamation was made in a slightly high-pitched tone as the young wizard leapt to his feet and pointed at the older man, his feet nearly tangling themselves in his expensive robes in his hurried attempt to put some distance between himself and the creature sitting before him at the small table.

Spike regarded the apparently jumpy boy with a raised brow, an amused smirk forming on his lips as he watched Willow try to calm the stranger they'd so recently found making a mess of the Magic Box's basement. For his part, Draco allowed the young woman to coax him back to his seat, part of him wondering at the sudden concern she was showing him when only minutes before she'd been threatening him with a crossbow.

The other part of him was too busy cursing itself to find her behavior curious.

Bloody fucking hell. He was one year – one year! – away from graduation, meaning he'd had six full years of DADA – and spent them near the top of his class, no less – not to mention everything his father had taught him, and yet he had still not been able to recognize a vampire when one had stood less than twenty feet from him.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, he had actually taken the vampire, and an apparent witch, for Muggles! The only thing he could say in his defense was that the woman's use of a crossbow instead of a wand supported his misinterpretation. As for the vampire, there was really no excuse for that mistake. The man had had bloody fucking fangs for Merlin's sake. How had he missed that? How had he missed any of it? And how in the name of the Dark Lord had he managed to get himself… wherever the fuck he was.

Grindlewald's balls! He didn't even know where he was, let alone how to get back. Not that getting back to Hogwarts would do him much good if he didn't have a way to kill the headmaster and get the Death Eaters into the school. The hopelessness, frustration, and despair that had been simmering in him over the past few months finally boiled over and the dignified heir to the Malfoy name and estate let his head fall forward into his hands as the long-denied tears began to gather in his icy pools.

Spike rolled his eyes at the boy's breakdown, the satisfaction he normally felt when someone had the intelligence to be afraid of him drowned out by his annoyance with the tears and theatrics. Throwing his hands in the air, he stalked off, leaving his redheaded friend to deal with the boy.

There had been fear in the blond when he'd first realized he'd been glaring at a vampire, but that had disappeared beneath the wave of self-pity that had washed over the younger Brit seconds before his tears had started. The stench had rolled his stomach. No use sticking around for the water works. The boy was obviously no threat to the witch at the moment, and there were demons out and about waiting for the Big Bad to come kick their ass. Nothin' like a nice spot of violence to cheer a vamp up, after all.

And cheer him up it did.

The peroxide-blond was in a fine mood when he returned to the Magic Box two hours later, where Willow sat with their dry-eyed but sullen looking guest. As he joined the two at the table, the redhead filled him in on what she had learned from the boy in his absence. She told the vampire that Draco was a wizard, and that he had been trying to fix his own cabinet when he'd somehow transported himself into the one in the shop's basement. Of course, this had led to an explanation of what the boy had told Willow of the cabinets' purpose and abilities, wherein Spike promptly found himself lost amongst the spell-jargon and gruffly asked the question that had been on both blonds' minds for quite some time.

"And what exactly are we supposed to do with our little guest now that he's landed his pale arse in good-old Sunnyhell?"

Willow's babbling ceased and she looked at Draco for several moments. During the course of their conversation, it had become clear that the boy had done a lot more than transport himself from Scotland to California. What exactly it meant that Willow had absolutely no knowledge of the existence of Hogwarts, or any other school of magic, remained unclear, however.

The blond seemed determined to believe the witch had simply never heard of it, but Willow suspected it was more than that. A lot of what Draco had been able to tell her about where he came from sounded, well… off. Things just didn't fit, and considering Draco's attempt at re-casting his original spell had gotten him nowhere, it looked like they were going to have to piece it all together before he had any chance at getting home.

Just not now.

The Wiccan smothered a yawn with her hand and turned to the other blond next to her. "He'll just have to stay with us 'till we figure it out, I guess."

Spike looked ready to argue, but a few seconds of the resolve face cured him of any stringent objections, and the three headed back to the Summers' house to relieve Anya and Xander of their Dawn-watching duties, the vampire muttering curses under his non-existent breath the entire way.

End Chapter One


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

It was a dump. That was the only thing the pureblood wizard could think as he looked around the basement of the Summers' home where he would be staying until things were sorted out and he was back in his plush dungeon rooms. Of course, as soon as he was back at Hogwarts, he'd have to start trying to find a way to keep himself and his family from being killed by the Lord they had always followed so loyally.

The thought settled uneasily in his stomach, reminding him that his latest attempt, his last hope, had garnered not only failure, but disaster. Not only was he stuck in this Merlin-forsaken heap of a muggle town for an unknown amount of time, he was in for a less than pleasant homecoming when he finally got out of here.

Such unhappy musings did not help his mood as he surveyed the rickety cot he'd been given to sleep on, the questionable piece of furniture sitting only a few feet from the small bed he'd been told belonged to the other British blond. The vampire.

He still wasn't sure exactly what he thought of sleeping so near a creature he had here-to only read about in his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks. Sure, he had always excelled in the class, if only because he knew so much about what they were being taught to defend themselves against. Yet, he found himself feeling leery, almost, dare he say it, scared, of the situation he now found himself in.

The heir to the Malfoy fortune silently cursed the mission that had been the cause of so many of his troubles of-late. If it wasn't for the assignment from the Dark Lord, he never would have ended up here, and even if he had, he probably would have reacted a lot differently to everything that had happened. Grindlewald-knew he wouldn't feel this damn sense of helplessness or fear.

He'd never really felt anything quite like it before his failed attempts at completing his task. Sure, he'd known fear, but not from this point of view. He'd always been secure in the knowledge that he was a Malfoy, a Pureblood, and damn good enough to handle anything that came his way. But now, well, after all he'd been through trying to fix the cabinet, he'd developed a disturbing and annoying account of his own abilities.

He knew now that his name and his lineage would not get him out of everything. He knew that his own skills and knowledge, which had inspired so much easy confidence that he had bordered on arrogant, were not quite so formidable as he'd thought. He knew that even coming from one of the most renowned blood-lines in all of the Wizarding World, even having followed his Lord so faithfully, he was not so precious or important as to be indispensable to Voldemort.

The alterations to his once secure reality were anything but comforting. Everything he'd known and believed, everything he'd thought to be right and true was crumbling apart, the pieces of his life tumbling onto him as his very world seemed to turn upside-down. He didn't know how to handle it, any of it, including the vampire currently making his way down the basement stairs towards him. Panic began a frenzied break-dance in his stomach and Draco struggled to keep his breathing even. He would not break down, he wouldn't. Not again. He was a Malfoy, damn-it, he was better than that.

Every ounce of pride and arrogance left in him rallied at his desperate call and just as the taller blond was within two feet of him, the sixth-year managed to square his shoulders and conjure a patent Malfoy-smirk to his pale lips.

Spike was less than impressed.

"Take a seat Malfoy."

Draco bristled at the tone, but despite the show of bravado he was attempting, he didn't have the energy or the confidence left to disobey. The vampire smirked down at the younger blond as he crossed his arms over his chest and waited. He didn't have to wait long, for all the uncertainty and fear the wizard possessed, Malfoys were not known for their patience.

"What do you want?"

"I want to know why you really ended up in the Magic Box."

Draco glared. He was really getting sick of that question. "I already told you-"

Spike cut him off, leaning forward menacingly. "I know what you told us. I want to know what you didn't tell us, 'cause there is something you're not saying, isn't there?"

Draco stiffened, but remained silent.

"Fine, twenty questions it is. You said you got here through your cabinet, right?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"Something went wrong with the spell I was using, I told you that already."

"Then you're going to tell me again." The growl that accompanied the words sent an involuntary shiver down Draco's spine.

"Where were you trying to go?"

"A shop."

"Which shop?" Icy menace dripped from each word and the young Malfoy had to fight not to lean back.

"Borgin and Burkes"

"And that would be…?" This time he did lean away, the smaller blond swallowing hard as he was forced to put his arms back, letting his elbows support his weight.

"A magic shop, in Knockturn Alley."

"Knockturn Alley, eh? Why does that not sound like somewhere a distinguished bloke like yourself should be goin'?" Draco swallowed again, a lie forming on his lips as he opened his mouth. Spike cut him off before he had a chance to test his invention. "Now you don't want to go lyin' to me mate, it'll land you in a right ugly situation."

Draco automatically tried to back away from the short glimpse of fang the vampire had just flashed him, forgetting that he was already leaning back on the cot. When the wizard ended up flat on his back on the small piece of furniture, Spike glared down at him and Draco couldn't get the words out fast enough.

"It's not, it's Dark."

"Dark? Dark magic you mean?" Malfoy nodded with near-frantic speed. "And why exactly were you wanting to get there?"

"That's were the other cabinet is."

"The other cabinet."

Draco nodded again. "I figured there was a way to travel from one to the other, that's why I was fixing the broken cabinet, so I could try and go through."

"And why did you want to do that? You're a wizard, surely you've got better ways to travel than through cabinets." A fine tremor began to make its way through the young man's body and Spike grinned rather evilly. Damn it was fun to be the Big Bad, the only things he'd been able to question like this lately were demons and while they were fun, humans were just so much better, even if he couldn't physically hurt them anymore.

"You can't Apparate into Hogwarts. And you can't use a portkey anymore, not since the Triwizard Tournament."

"Hogwarts. That's the magic school of yours, right? Why were you wanting to get into school, you go there don't you?"

"I do, but…"

The way he trailed off, and the pungent waves of fear rolling off him told the vampire that this was it, this was what he'd been hiding, so he put even more menace in his voice as he growled at the trembling wizard still laying half across the cot that would be his bed. "But what, mate?"

"They don't. They don't go to Hogwarts, they can't get in, the doddering old Headmaster has too strong of wards around the school."

"Really? And who exactly are 'they'?"

"Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters? Care to be a bit more descriptive about who these lovely blokes may be?"

"Followers, of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Voldemort, the Dark Lord."

"Dark Lord, eh? Now there's a chap I'd like to meet. Guess you're pretty fond of him too, seeing as you're being so eager to help him and all."

Silver eyes burned, the statement which once would have brought him so much pride now cutting into him like a bitter knife. He couldn't bring himself to vocalize the connection he'd once had – once, but no longer, he vowed – with the Dark Lord. But somehow, he could say the one thing he'd not spoken of to anyone, not even his mother when she had first informed him of the truth. He could say it now, and he did.

"He'll kill me. He'll kill my parents. If I can't get the Death Eaters in the school, if I can't kill the Headmaster, he'll kill us instead. He will, he'll kill me and he'll kill them 'cause I can't do it. I've tried, so hard, but I can't." The despair in Draco's voice began to harden as he spoke, his fear and helplessness forgotten as the frustration and anger once more took hold.

"I might as well throw the lot of us before his evil snake arse and be done with it, 'cause I can't do it. It wouldn't work, none of my plans would work. I tried spells and potions and charms, but this is the only damn place that piece of junk has sent me and now I'm stuck. I can't even try anything else now, and as soon as Voldemort knows I've failed, he'll kill my family and then he'll find me and he'll kill me too. We're nothing to him, we're worthless, disposable, and we're even less to everybody else. The Malfoys are shite, we're evil, worthless shite!"

The young blond's voice grew in volume as his emotions mounted within him until his words echoed up the stairs, out of the basement, and into the ears of Dawn Summers, who stood frozen at the basement door. And even as the sound of them faded away into harsh sobs, the words still echoed in her ears as she turned and went back to her room.

It was no use saying goodnight to Spike now, it seemed the vampire had his hands full of angry wizard at the moment. Besides, after everything she'd just heard, Dawn had a few too many thoughts to sleep anyway.

End Chapter Two


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Things were different here, annoyingly different and quite pathetic at times, but in a nice way, if that were possible. Draco held back a mirthless laugh. Possible, impossible, the two had really begun to blur together for him over the course of his stay here in sunny Muggle California. Not that where he'd ended up could really be called entirely Muggle.

For all that he'd known – disliked, but known – many Muggle-born witches and wizards while at Hogwarts, he'd never thought the two worlds could really be blended, yet here, they kind of were. No one who lived in this house fit the description of a Muggle, at least not the description he'd always been taught. Yet they weren't what he knew as witches or wizards either, Muggle-born or Pureblood.

It was strange, the young blond thought. It was all very strange. The people, the house, the objects and furniture, even the weather was strange to him. Yet, for the first time in his life, he found that strangeness interesting, though annoying at times. In the past he'd always hated anything that was too different or difficult to understand. He liked his life orderly and controllable, liked things to fit within his sturdy rules and expectations. But now that those rules and expectations were anything but sturdy he found himself intrigued by the views and understandings that were taking shape around him.

At first, of course, he'd resisted the reordering of his world, but he'd gotten used to the instability after a week or so; after all, when it came right down to it, his world had been changing long before he'd mistakenly sent himself to wherever or whatever this place was. Yes, he'd given up on the notion that he had merely transported himself across the globe and finally accepted the fact that he'd somehow ended up a lot further from home than a simple ocean.

The red-haired witch had been a lot of help in that respect the past few weeks. After he'd quashed the initial irritation he'd felt at having to work with someone who on the surface resembled the mudbloods he'd always hated so much, he'd found her to be quite helpful and enlightening on a magical basis. Of course, the hair reminded him a bit too much of a Weasley for his liking but he was working on that. The lessons she'd been giving him on the type of magic that existed in this world were going a long way in relieving that irritation.

Despite the Wiccan's help, however, they were no closer to figuring out how to get him home than they had been the night he'd shown up. They had discovered how he'd ended up in the Magic Box though.

Apparently the young wizard had been a bit too vague in his wording. While he had in fact created a link between the cabinet at Hogwarts and its twin he'd neglected to specify which twin that was to be. According to Willow, since he had left that open, the spell had connected the Hogwarts cabinet with the Magic Box's cabinet since it too was in less than perfect condition and therefore was more a twin to the original piece of furniture than the intact one at Borgin and Burkes.

That discovery had cleared up the reasoning behind his being sent to Sunnydale, but it hadn't explained why he'd been unable to recast the spell and send himself back to the school. The charm he'd used on himself had been much more enlightening though no more useful. It would seem that he'd mucked up the charm as well.

The charms and curses that he'd combined to make his new charm had all been pieces of magic to send a person where they wanted to go. Even Willow hadn't seen the problem with that until her girlfriend had quietly pointed out that most of the time, although a person may want one thing a lot, some other part of them wants something else even more. It would seem that the charm he'd constructed had chosen the other part of Draco when it had pinpointed where he wanted to go. This, logically, had led to a closer examination of what Draco had been trying to accomplish, what he had wanted when he'd gone through the cabinet.

"I was trying to get into Borgin and Burkes," the sixth year had stated.

"Why?" had come the redhead's query.

"So the Death Eaters could go from the shop to the school." Draco's voice had lost just a bit of its usual smug indifference as he'd answered, the wizard having found himself a little uncomfortable presenting such evidence of his previous allegiance to the Dark Lord, though he wasn't quite sure why.

"Why did you want them to be able to get in the school?"

"Because it was my job to get them in." The pride that had once been in his voice when he spoke of the trust Voldemort had placed in him by assigning him the task had been absent from his words as he'd looked down at the now familiar wood of the Summers' dining room table.

"And why did you want to do your job?"

The blond had rolled his eyes slightly, finding the questions circular and annoying, and somewhat reminiscent of the bald guy on the wrestling show Spike sometimes watched, though Willow was asking him why instead of what. "Because I had to. It was my duty as a Death Eater."

"Why did you have to do your duty?"

"I didn't have a damn choice. If I didn't, he'd kill me and my parents."

"So you didn't really want to get to Borgin and Burkes?"

"Of course I did. I bloody well didn't want to fail and have me and my parents tortured to death by a big fucking snake."

"But that's all you wanted, isn't it? You wanted to avoid the punishment for failure, not particularly achieve success."

"Of course I wanted to avoid being tortured to death." A condescending sneer had twisted his lips as he'd said this. What were they, bloody daft? Why wouldn't he want to avoid that kind – or any kind – of punishment?

"What I mean is that while you didn't want to get in trouble for failing you didn't want to succeed either. You didn't really want to get to the shop because you didn't really want the Death Eaters in the school."

At this point, Draco had been forced to think about everything he'd learned as he'd struggled to do as he'd been bid. Voldemort was still the Dark Lord and he still agreed with the snake-arse that Pureblood wizards were better than half-bloods or Muggle-borns, or Muggles themselves. But had he wanted them all destroyed, even before he'd come here and met these people that, although they weren't really Muggles, weren't really witches or wizards and yet still weren't the scum he'd always been taught non-purebloods to be? Had he still respected the Dark Lord's ideals, after learning what Voldemort really thought of himself and his family despite their being loyal Purebloods? Had he really still wanted to serve his Lord and kill almost every student and teacher at his school?

"No." A rather heavy silence had descended on the group after the quiet admission. Then a soft voice had brought them back to the question at hand.

"So w-what did you r-really want?"

Grey eyes had turned to regard the quiet blonde-haired witch sitting next to Willow. He'd been about to repeat himself again, say that he just wanted to do what he had to so he and his parents wouldn't be hurt, but something in Tara's soft gaze froze his response on his lips. That wasn't really what she'd been asking. She'd been asking what else he'd wanted. What other wish had been hidden inside him when he'd cast the spell, what else the charm could have sought out when it had sent him to Sunnydale. So he'd stopped, and he'd thought, trying to dig through himself to find the answer they'd needed.

With a sigh, he'd spoken a few minutes later, his normally confident tone quiet and subdued as he'd admitted the secret wish that had grown inside him as he'd learned so much about himself, the reality of the world around him, and the people in it.

"I guess what I'd really wanted was to not have to do it." Draco had fallen silent for a moment, but whether it was the questioning gazes of the two witches, or his own need to say it, he'd continued a few seconds later.

"I wanted to not have to find a way to not get myself and my family killed, to not have to figure out how to kill Dumbledore or make it so the others could kill most of the students and teachers. I guess I really just wanted to not worry about any of it. I wanted to not have to follow that damn snake's orders or the orders of anyone who followed him."

"You wanted to be free."

He hadn't been able to make himself meet the other blonde's gaze as she spoke, but he'd nodded, slowly, in response.

"Well, I guess you're better at making spells than you thought, Draco," Willow had said and that time he had managed to raise his icy grey gaze to the dark green orbs and she'd smiled at him. "There's no Voldemort here, Draco. No Death Eaters, no one who wants anything from you. You're free."

He'd sat at the table a long while after Willow and Tara had left, his thoughts spinning frantically inside his head. It had worked, that much, as Willow had said, was clear. The question of his arrival was answered. But even four days later, another question remained, because as enlightening as that was, it still didn't help him get back where he belonged. But then again, if the spells really had worked, and he'd gotten what he truly wanted, was Hogwarts actually where he belonged?

Pale blond strands fell forward, covering steel colored pools as he dropped his head into his hands. Was Hogwarts where he belonged, or was it here, in this annoyingly Muggle town with these sometimes annoying not-quite-Muggles? He didn't know the answer to that, and he didn't know how to find it either, but luckily for him, he wasn't going to have to find it on his own.

At least not if the girl watching him from the hallway, had anything to say about it. And Dawn Summers planned to have plenty to say about it.

End Chapter Three


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

He'd been there almost a month now. Three weeks and five days to be exact, and in that time he had learned a lot of things. He'd learned first and foremost, that he was stuck here, at least for the foreseeable future. And he'd learned that his stay might not be nearly as miserable as he would have assumed should he have been told where he was headed when he'd stepped into the cabinet. He'd also learned that his magic, while it still worked, operated somewhat differently than it had back home, enabling him to cast almost entirely independent of his wand. But most of all, he'd learned that of everything he'd been introduced to, he liked television best.

He'd found it interesting, though somewhat disconcerting, the first time he'd seen it work. It was as if an entire book had been made into a painting. The different characters talked and moved and told a story. They didn't talk back like a real painting, but he had found that was just as refreshing as it was disappointing. He'd taken to spending a good portion of his free time enjoying the refreshingly interesting Muggle device, and the more time he spent with it, the more fun he had, which was why he was sitting on the Summers' couch at two-thirty in the morning, watching infomercials.

It was somewhat amazing how many different things Muggles could come up with to sell, and it annoyed him to know that he didn't have access to his family vault so that he could check out some of the strange things offered on the little screen. So intent was his contemplation of the electric juicer the woman was raving about on the TV that at first he didn't hear the teenage girl currently descending the stairs. It was because of this preoccupation that the blond wizard almost jumped in his seat when the brunette tripped on a pair of shoes as she passed the couch on her way into the kitchen.

"Oh, hey Draco, sorry for scaring you," Dawn said as she righted herself and kicked the tennis shoes out of her way.

"I wasn't scared," he stated almost defensively as he regarded the tall girl, "I was startled, that's all." She just smiled and he suppressed a snippy retort to the irritatingly sunny expression. Even after all this time, he was still having a hard time with the reception he had received here.

Willow and Tara were just so nice and friendly that their welcoming him didn't seem the least out of character, though it had left him with the urge to shudder on more than one occasion. And Xander was much the same way, the young man appearing to take everything, even a strange wizard popping out of a cabinet, in cheerful stride. Entirely too trusting, in Draco's opinion. The man's fiancé was the only one, aside from Spike, who acted a bit suspicious of him and the woman held no reservations about stating those suspicions, bluntly, on a fairly frequent basis.

Aside from his initial greeting and the continuing behavior of the vampire and former demon, however, Draco had been treated with disconcerting kindness and trust during his stint on the mouth of hell. Neither was something he was all that used to, being a Malfoy and Slytherin as he was. Needless to say, it was taking a bit of getting used to, so much so that the young wizard sometimes found himself retreating to his pathetic little cot in the basement so Spike could glare at him distrustfully. That dank little space was like a little bit of Slytherin, especially when the suspicious and potentially dangerous vampire was in residence.

No more often did he find himself needing that steadying familiarity than when he was face to face with the girl before him. She was entirely too perky, he'd decided upon their first introduction. Sure, there were times – a lot of them if he was honest – when she looked anything but happy, but on the whole she was perfect Hufflepuff material, or even worse, a candidate for Gryffindor. Or at least that's what he liked to tell himself, as it gave him the perfect reason to be annoyed by the big blue eyes she often cast in his direction, rather than to have any other reaction to the wide, innocent pools.

Dawn nodded in a way that suggested she was humoring her fellow teenager. "Right, startled."

Draco glared at the not-quite-Muggle girl, wondering, not for the first time, what it was that made Dawn Summers feel so very much not like a Muggle to the extra sense he'd somehow developed over the extent of his stay in this strange yet similar dimension. Willow had tried to explain it to him when he'd mentioned it the other day, something about the way his own personal magic was adapting to the different mystical fields around the hellmouth. It didn't make much sense to him. Whatever it was, though, it made him sure that the girl standing before him was no muggle, which was of course the only reason he might, just maybe, perhaps, not find her irritatingly perky behavior quite so annoying.

Sometimes.

The blond continued to glare as the thoughts spun through his head, almost making him miss the looks she was casting the door to the basement, though why she might be doing that he didn't know. The only things down there were his cot that the bed Spike slept on. Unless… Draco almost laughed. Right, of course she'd be down here looking for the bloodsucking demon. Well too bad.

"Spike's not here."

Dawn's large blue eyes flashed back to the subject of her recent near-obsessive interest, her mind having to stutter to a stop from her contemplations of exactly why their guest might be up at this time of morning watching infomercials. Aside from his cute but freakish obsession with the television of course. Spike. He thought she was down here to see Spike. Logical assumption since that had in fact been her original reason for coming down here, not of course that she'd retained any thoughts of that intention upon seeing the other blond.

"Oh. Well, that's okay. What are you doing?"

Icy grey pools narrowed at her flippant response and he regarded her suspiciously before answering. "Watching TV."

"Well duh. Why?"

Another few seconds of silence hung between them before he spoke, the young wizard trying his best to figure out exactly where this was going. If he'd been back at Hogwarts, he would know exactly what kind of sneaky and vicious trap were being laid for him and therefore know how to respond. Here, however, he hadn't a clue. Finally, he decided to be mostly truthful, but safely vague.

"I can't sleep."

Dawn nodded understandingly and flopped down next to him on the couch. "Yeah, me neither. What'cha watchin'?"

His eyes narrowed once more. He most certainly hadn't a clue here. The brunette took his silence in stride and turned her attention to the TV, wrinkling her nose when she realized exactly what was on the screen. "Ugh, you can't seriously be planning to watch this for any length of time, can you?"

Again, she got no more answer than a hard glare and the last of the Summers women shrugged her shoulders. "That's cool, I'm sure we can find something worth watching around here."

He watched her for a few moments as she walked across the room and began quietly rummaging through a cabinet full of DVDs. It wasn't until she'd made her way back over to the television and started fiddling with the channels and inserting the disc into the DVD player that her words really registered.

"Wait a second- we?"

She tossed him a smile as she sat back on the couch and situated herself. "Yep."

He glared. Again. "Why?"

Some of the shine went out of her smile at his harsh tone and she shrugged again, but with noticeably less cheer than before. "Why not?"

"It's two-thirty in the morning."

This time her shrug looked positively sad as her gaze fell to her lap. "I told you, I can't sleep."

Her voice had sounded so small when she'd spoken, Draco had to grit his teeth against the strange and unfamiliar urge to be comforting. "Is that why you were looking for Spike?" he asked with a raised brow, instinctively falling back on old habits in order to overcome the odd urge. "He tire you out so you can sleep?"

She stared at him for a few seconds, confused, before wrinkling her nose. "Ewww! No way, that's gross, Spike's like my big brother or something. Besides, he has a crush on my sister." As soon as the words had left her mouth she froze, an expression sweeping over her face that he could only describe as despondent. "Well, he did anyway."

The last words had been so soft and sad the sixth year couldn't help but reply in an equally quiet voice, though every lingering bit of Slytherin bully in him rallied at him to sneer and insult. "Why not anymore?"

She was the one to be silent now, teenage pride warring with the tears that were attempting to form. "She died."

Not knowing how to respond to that, Draco turned with a small "Oh" and averted his eyes from the single tear making its way down her cheek, though he wondered, even as he did it, where the consideration had come from. Surely his father had never taught him that emotion.

When the silence had stretched long and uncomfortable between them, the wizard finally lost patience and blurted out the only thing he could think of. "So, what's the movie?"

Brown hair whipped across her shoulders as she jerked in surprise and spun to face him. "What?" A few seconds of thought had her smiling damply at the change in topic and she seized it thankfully as she reached for the remote.

"Star Wars, of course. This is episode one, though it was actually the fourth to come out. Spike likes to watch them in the order they were released, but personally, I prefer them chronologically."

Draco nodded, although he had no idea what she was talking about. One thing he did know, however, as he turned his attention to the TV screen, was that he liked to see Dawn Summers smile. Even if it was a little too Hufflepuff for his tastes.

End Chapter Four


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

The epic series known as Star Wars was, in Draco Malfoy's opinion, slightly creepy. Not the story or the effects, or even the subject matter, all those, while strongly Gryffindoric in their good versus bad ideals, were quite exciting to watch. No, the thing he found creepy were the characters, or rather one particular character and his painful similarities to a certain less than fictitious individual. That is to say, the blond wizard saw too much in common between Luke's father and his own. It was disturbing.

He'd first seen it when they'd watched episode three a few nights before, halfway through his and Dawn's little Star Wars Marathon. He and the young brunette had talked a little about Anakin's 'turn to the dark side' that night and as he'd fallen asleep, it had all started coming together in his head. Well, okay, Dawn had done most of the talking in her annoyingly enthusiastic way and he'd mostly nodded and wondered why she found it all so fascinating, but the end result had been the same. He'd seen the similarities, and he didn't like them.

Anakin had been trying to protect his wife. He'd been headstrong and arrogant and naïve, but his intentions had been good, noble even, and it got the young Brit to thinking about his own father's reasons for joining the 'dark side'. Lucius Malfoy had wanted to protect and preserve his bloodline, to ensure the future and standing of all pureblood wizards, including and especially his family, and that, he supposed, was noble in its own way.

The realization had not set well with him, especially with all the things he'd learned about the Death Eaters, his father included. It had been too painful figuring out that his dad was not the valiant and noble defender of the Malfoy name that he had grown up believing him to be. It had taken too much to show him what the Death Eaters and their Lord really were for this shite to muck it all up now.

It had been easier to think that he'd been completely wrong all those years and that everything and everyone connected to Voldemort was simply evil and nothing else, even if it meant thinking that of himself. But now, well, now it was all so damn complicated. If Lucius had really been noble, even if only in his mind, if he had been trying to do what he thought was right, then he wasn't totally evil after all. And if he wasn't totally evil, then why the hell had he stood by and allowed his only son to be given an assignment that was just short of a suicide mission?

Draco was torn from his rapidly depressing thoughts by the exuberant voice of Dawn Summers as she bounced on the couch next to him, clapping softly at the credits on the TV screen. "Didn't you just love it? The fifth is still my favorite episode but wasn't it such a perfect ending?"

The blond crossed his arms with a scowl as he thought about said ending and remembered what he had been thinking about before she'd interrupted. "No," he snapped. "It was a stupid ending."

The scene flashed before his mind's eye as if it were still playing on the television before him. He saw the emperor killing Luke, he saw Darth Vader save him, saw father and son flee together, saw Anakin die in his son's arms, expressing his regret and love with his last breath. Then he saw his own father, and he imaged himself standing before the Dark Lord, having failed his assignment. Would Lucius step in front of Voldemort to save him? Would he sacrifice himself? Surely he'd risked his life for his lord; would he do the same for his son?

"It was bloody unrealistic," Draco said, his voice tinged with bitter intensity.

Dawn shook her head. "It's a movie Draco. It's not supposed to be realistic, it's supposed to be fun and exciting. Besides," the brunette stated as she got up to place the DVD back in its case on the shelf, "I don't think it's that unrealistic. Sometimes the good guys win, we did loads of times."

Draco clenched his hands into fists and struggled with the unsettling parallels he'd drawn. "It is too unrealistic," he said with typical Malfoy stubbornness. "He wouldn't do that. Anakin was evil. He'd served the Emperor for decades, he wouldn't all of sudden turn back." The wizard's voice grew quieter with every word, not wanting to say it out loud, but for some reason, needing to do so. "Not even for his son."

The brunette teen rolled her eyes at their new houseguest, ready to rebuke his argument until she turned, and noticed that the blond was actually starting to shake as he ground out the words with an acidic vehemence she'd never heard from him before, even when he'd yelled at Spike the first night he was there. Something inside Dawn froze for an instant as she stared at the normally harshly reserved young man she'd been getting to know.

Why was he getting so worked up about the movie? He'd been fine when they'd watched the other ones, but even as she thought that, she remembered how tense he'd been after the third movie. There was something here, the youngest, and only, Summers thought as she slowly sat back down next to him on the couch, still eyeing him carefully.

"Draco?" she asked as softly and neutrally a she could.

He tensed again and shook his head. "It's a stupid ending. The whole damn thing is stupid. Things don't work out like that and the only people that think they do are fooling themselves. The good guys don't win that easily, not in real life."

"You mean not in your life." Her soft words made his eyes snap up and pin her with an icy gaze.

It looked like he was going to yell, to scream at her, and she wondered what she'd say to the others when he woke them up, but her concern proved unnecessary. His head dropped and his shoulders slumped, all the fire and anger seeming to just drain out of him in a matter of seconds. The silence that descended on the room was empty and strained; until Dawn took a deep breath, and spoke.

"Yeah. Not in mine either." His eyes left his lap and met hers once more, this time the pale orbs looking more cool than frigid.

"My dad left when I was ten. He used to take me and Buffy for the summer, but he stopped doing that a couple years ago. He never even came to my mom's funeral, never tried to get custody of me. I was kind of relieved that he didn't challenge Buffy for it, but it still would have been nice if he'd cared enough to make the effort." She shrugged and looked away from him.

"Mom was there when he left, and Buffy tried to keep it all together for me after mom died, but…" She could feel his gaze on the top of her head as she tried to gather her thoughts and put into words something she'd never even told Spike or Willow. "But you're right."

Blue and grey locked. "Real life isn't like the movies. Even when we fight the good fight and win, it isn't the same. Shit happens along the way and you can't control it and you can't protect yourself, or anyone else, from it. Buffy tried her best to protect me. She died doing it." Dawn twisted her hands almost violently in her lap as she spoke, remembering that night on the tower, the cold wind and the warm wetness of her own blood.

"She killed herself so I could live, but she couldn't save me from watching her fall, watching her die. She couldn't save me from the pain or fear when I lost her. She told me to live though, and I have, but not for her. Living just for her would be pointless. I can't help her, I can't make her happy. I have to live for myself." Neither said anything for several minutes and eventually Dawn stood on shaky legs and left the blond to his thoughts, turning back only once to regard him with a sad, knowing smile.

"You have to live for yourself, Draco. You can love your parents, or you can hate them, and you can miss them too, but even if they were standing in front of you right now, you couldn't live your life for them, you'd have to live it for yourself."

End Chapter Five


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

The sound of grumbled curses followed the young wizard through the Summers' house as he carried the various belongings he'd collected over the few months he'd been in Sunnydale from the basement into what would now be his room. He wasn't taking much at a time – not that there was all that much in the first place – and none of the items were very heavy, but he complained about the carrying anyway.

A simple levitating charm, even one of the ones he was learning to cast without his wand, would be easier, and certainly more befitting a wizard of his caliber and heritage, the blond thought as he set the small box down just inside the door. Yet he wasn't using one. No, he, Draco Malfoy, was lugging boxes and clothing by hand, the Muggle way. And not just from one room to the next, but up the basement stairs, through the kitchen and living room, up more stairs, and finally into his new room. It was menial labor, far below his station. But he was doing it anyway.

He'd found himself doing that a lot since ending up here, performing tasks he would never have even contemplated the house elves doing, let alone himself. He wasn't quite sure why either. The fact that these almost-Muggles expected this of him had been shocking and insulting at first, but over the last three months he had somehow managed to get used to the idea. Almost. Willow, Tara, and Xander still had to prod and push him to do his chores every week, but he took great satisfaction in the fact that they often had to do the same to get Dawn to clean her room and wash her clothes and dishes.

If nothing else, he knew the trial of the chores was a large source of amusement for the other blond, the vampire often following him around on chore day just to be there when Willow realized what he hadn't finished and came to lecture him. Lecture. Him, Draco Malfoy, actually received a lecture. Fairly frequently. It was just wrong on so many levels. Yet he put up with it on all of them.

He put up with having to actually cleanup after himself, and perform a few common chores besides. He put up with having to learn an entirely new kind of magic (which he privately found quite fun and interesting) and he put up with being told what to do and being forced to learn Muggle – yes, Muggle – defense. He learned how to kick and punch and block, with his hands – his own hands – instead of his wand.

The former Hogwarts student didn't know why he put up with all of it – he **knew** he wasn't going to put up with this idea of him going to school with Dawn at the start of the next year. Really, a Malfoy in a Muggle school, don't think so – it wasn't like he actually liked being there, in a too-Muggle world with these not-quite-Muggles. He certainly didn't like this moving business. Not only did he have to carry his own things from one place to the next, he had to trade the comfortably dark basement for this bright cheery monstrosity. Even if he did get a bigger bed, he wasn't sure it was worth it.

A sneer twisted his lips, though with less harsh intensity as it had only a few months before, as he surveyed his new room. Certainly not a Malfoy's room. It was too bright and too airy and too covered with butterflies. He didn't like it. And not just because of the look that had filtered across Dawn's face when they'd started emptying it out for his use.

Another string of curses drifted out under his breath. Why should Dawn's expression have anything to do with anything? What did it matter if the slender brunette got a little misty-eyed? So what if the room he was now going to be living in used to belong to her older sister? More curses spewed from his lips, which curled back slightly as he turned to face the person who had just rapped lightly on the doorframe behind him. Cool silver pools ran over the delicate planes of Dawn Summers' face. Her sad face.

Damn it. He didn't care whether she was sad. He didn't.

Oh bloody hell, he did.

"Stop." Her forehead and nose scrunched up a bit in a way he most certainly did not think was cute, as she looked at him questioningly.

"The look," he clarified, "Stop it." His words were sullen and clipped, but having grown used to the Malfoy sulk-speech, Dawn wasn't all that affected.

"What look?" she asked.

"Your look. The one you wear whenever you see this room, or me in this room. It bothers me, and I hate that it bothers me." All the frustration he'd been feeling over the course of his stay in her home began to build and pulse within him, raising his voice and his anger. "I didn't use to care, you know. I didn't care about anything or anyone. I was an arse, damn it. I was an evil bloody arse and I enjoyed it and I have the fucking mark to prove it."

His voice had grown to a shout and all the emotions bubbling over caused his hands to shake as he yanked up the sleeve of his shirt and shoved his tattooed forearm into Dawn's face. "Do you know what this is?" he yelled. "Do you?"

The tall brunette had been forced to take a step back to avoid getting hit in the face with his arm but she remained inside the room, not making a move or sound that might shatter the precarious control Draco had of himself. This is what he'd been holding back, she realized. This is what he hadn't been able to tell anyone, what he'd needed to tell someone. Well, if he was going to tell then she was going to listen and she'd be damned if anything she did made him stop. No matter how much he yelled or screamed. They were the only ones in the house at the moment, so noise didn't matter, but what he had to say did. Yes, she had a feeling it mattered a lot.

"It's the Dark Mark," Draco continued, oblivious to her thoughts as he crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself unconsciously as he continued to rail. "It's the mark of the Death Eaters, torturers and murderers of mudbloods, half-bloods, and Muggles; followers of the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Voldemort himself, the cruelest and most powerful dark wizard since Grindlewald. It shows that I was a Death Eater, a dark wizard. I was evil, barely even human."

Half-way through his self-deprecating shouts, the prince of Slytherin had turned away from his almost forgotten audience, though whether it was to hide his anger or his tears he wasn't sure. Either way, the soft words that suddenly broke the tense silence had him spinning on his heel to regard the other teenager with equal parts shock and disbelief.

"Well, humanity can be overrated. I wasn't human either, once upon a time."

His aristocratic mouth hung open in a silent 'what' but he wasn't quite able to form the question into actual words. She answered it anyway. "See, there was this mystical ball of energy – green energy to be precise – that opened a portal to this hell-dimension and these monks wanted to keep it away from this hell-goddess that wanted it to get home. So they sent it to the slayer to protect, and to make sure she'd protect it, they made it into a teenage girl and altered everyone's memories so they'd all think this newly-minted girl was the slayer's sister. That'd be me."

That unexpected bit of news shocked him right out of his own 'woe is evil little me' tirade and he calmly looked her over from head to toe, as if making sure he didn't all of a sudden see a green glow emanating from her skin. "You were energy? And you opened a hell dimension?"

"Yep," she said, nodding decisively. "The Key, they called me, though Xander occasionally likes to call me greenie instead."

"You weren't human?"

"Nope, wasn't even real."

"But now you are?"

"Yeah. My blood only opened the portal at a certain time in a certain place. Now it just makes a mess."

Draco just stared for a few seconds. "But you're human. You're not just a memory or a key, you're a girl with friends and a home. You make weird food that somehow manages to taste good and you help fight vampires and demons and save the world and shite. Right?"

"Right," she stated with another nod as she took the few steps necessary to put her within reach of the still-tense wizard. "And so are you. Well, you're not a girl, and your food tastes terrible no matter what you do," Dawn returned his scowl with one of the sunny Hufflepuff-esque smiles that bugged the hell out of him, "but you have friends here, and a home, and you help us fight the good fight."

She had to pull hard against him to get a hold of his arm, but she did, and as she straightened it out, she looked closely at the skull and snake cursed into his pale flesh. "You aren't the same person you were when you got this, Draco. You've changed."

The brunette kept a firm hold on the arm while she raised her free hand to his chin, tilting it up until he was looking at her. When their eyes had locked, she lowered the hand, resting it lightly on the tattoo. He flinched at the touch, trying his best to pull away but she held on, releasing neither his arm nor his eyes. Blue remained locked with grey and her thumb rubbed lightly back and forth across the blemished skin.

"You've changed, but you still have to move on. You have to live, for yourself. And you have to be happy."

For the first time in the life of the Malfoy heir, he couldn't find it in himself to smirk or sneer or brush her off with a snarky insult. Instead, he raised a single eyebrow in the closest thing to arrogance he could muster and tried to hide the uncertainty in his voice.

"Be happy? And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"

Dawn didn't say a word in response, she just smiled that irritatingly cheerful smile. And then she leaned forward, and kissed him.

Well, that was certainly one way.

End Chapter Six

End Story


End file.
